


Credits Roll

by lurrel



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode V: Empire Strikes Back, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Amputation, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-13
Updated: 2016-11-13
Packaged: 2018-08-30 18:09:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8543695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lurrel/pseuds/lurrel
Summary: Lando makes up for his first impressions.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hydianway](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hydianway/gifts).



> Set at the end of Empire Strikes Back. I’ve brought in some background from the recent Lando comic series - all you need to know is that Lobot, his aide from Bespin, was forced to let his implanted computer take control of his mind to save Lando, leaving him incredibly smart but destroying much of his personality. He’s alive, but essentially more AI than man.

When Lando learns the guy he caught from the sky in Cloud City is a Jedi Knight, he almost can’t believe it. Then he can.

-

The kid is small in his arms, red-faced and tear-stained and half-conscious as Lando pulls him from the sky into the Falcon.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Lando says, trying to soothe him as Chewie navigates theme out. Luke holds onto his shirt, grabs at the cape with the one hand he’s got left.

Lando sways on his feet on his way to the holding bay lounge, and just manages to strap Luke down behind the Dejarik table before he falls over when Chewie twists the ship, trying to lose their tails.

Leia’s head pops in from the corridor -- Lando can feel the sudden surge of hyperspace and she stumbles over him, landing next to Luke, who moans and reaches out for her.

“How did you know he’d be there?” Lando asks and Leia just shrugs.

-

“I’ll be fine,” Luke is saying for the twentieth time, and Lando can’t handle it anymore. He steps into the tiny med bay and rests a hand on Leia’s shoulder, which she shoves off immediately.

“You have no right --” she starts and he holds up one finger to shush her.

“You have to get some sleep, Princess,” he says. “Chewie’s manning the helm - I’ll wake you up when I change shifts with him, so you can go back to Luke duty.”

She seems to deflate, shoulders slumping.

“Fine,” she huffs, “but you wake me up if he needs _anything_ , okay?”

“I promise.”

“Your word isn’t worth bantha spit, Calrissian,” she says, eyes fierce.

He shrugs and smiles wide. “Okay, that’s fair. But look, I’ve picked a side -- I couldn’t go anywhere if I wanted to. I know how to keep an eye out.”

Lando watches her go, leaning in the doorway, and then turns to Luke. Without the blood on his face he looks less injured but more exhausted, wrung out.

“How’re you feeling?”

Luke gives him a watery smile and shrugs. “I’ve been better.”

“I’ll bet.” Lando drops himself into the seat next to Luke and stretches out his considerable legs, letting out a sigh. “You think you can get any sleep?”

“What, you already trying to get out of keeping me company?” Luke shifts, lifts the one hand that’s not strapped to his chest and bandaged.

The water glass on the side table shakes and Lando hands it over. He’s never seen the Force in action but he knows better than to act impressed.

“I could get it myself,” Luke says quietly. “You don’t actually have to sit there staring at me for the next four hours.”

Lando leans back, cradling his head in his hands, elbows out. “Not like I have anything better to do. If I go back to the cockpit, Chewie’s just going to yell at me.”

Luke looks him dead-on at that. “You tried to sell us all to Lord Vader.”

And there it is, that guilt that the adrenaline of escape managed to erase for a while. He swallows, wonders if Luke would be willing to share his water to help ease his suddenly dry throat.

“I had a whole city to consider,” Lando says, and his voice is as steady and statesmanlike as it’s ever been.

Luke’s eyes are a light, warm blue and Lando has honestly only ever felt this bad about one thing in his life, and he’ll be damned if he lets Han haunt him like that.

“It was pretty short-sighted.” Luke hands him his water glass and Lando’s hands tremble, just a little.

“Vader holds considerable power,” Luke says, like it’s a benign fact and the man, the machine, isn’t a terrifying force of the preternatural. Like being in a room with him isn’t like standing in the middle of an ion storm.

“Not everyone has such a good bargaining chip at their disposal,” Lando says. “If the needs of the many, etc. etc.”

“There’s only one way to save the many,” Luke says, and Lando puts the glass down, waves his hand.

“I know, I know. Destroy the Empire. Defeat the Imperials. We get those broadcasts too. But, well. Look how you left your last encounter.”

“I don’t think he’ll kill me," Luke says thoughtfully. "There's something inside Lord Vader -- something that stops him."

“You’re too young for this,” he says. “Pfassk, I’m too young for that kind of talk!”

“It’s not like there are a lot of other Jedi around,” Luke says, and Lando hates it.

“If the Force makes you into someone like Lord Vader, I can understand why not many people want to follow that path.”

Luke lets his eyes close, settles back into the seat cushions he’s propped up on. “The Force didn’t make him like that,” he says, but it’s not even as strong as his mild insults felt.

“Then what did?” Lando doesn’t know much about it, only legends, hearsays, and whispered fears. But he knows what being around Vader feels like -- a strong magnetic pull toward him, driven by your darkest thoughts.

If the Empire had shown favor to Cloud City...the wealth would have been enough to shield it from any upcoming instability, keeping his citizens fat and happy. His coffers would have been considerably richer.

Luke doesn’t answer, so Lando asks, “Was he born that twisted?”

His eyes don’t open but he frowns. “Vader is just a man. He’s always just been a man.”

Lando watches the cup of water shake again, notes how the ripples tremble. Even in bandages, hopped up on nyex and whatever other expired meds Han kept on the Falcon, Luke seems serene. There’s no sign of the desperate, sobbing thing he was just mere hours ago, except in the slight rasp of his voice.

He wonders if Luke has been like this since birth, still water covering tectonic power.

-

Looking at Luke in the bacta tank, Lando thinks again that he doesn’t have much room to talk about bad first impressions.

But Luke looks especially unimpressive when submerged in bacta, vulnerable and soft. It’s his last day in, the end of the first leg of their trip from Cloud City to a safe station for the princess to plan their next moves. The EF76 Nebulon-B escort frigate they’re on is stocked especially for triage, but it’s a slow ship even on a straightforward flight, let alone one that necessitates multiple hyperspace jumps. They won’t be followed, but it won’t be quick.

Lando wonders what impression he first gave Lobot, that Lobot would record a goodbye for him, that Lobot knew the inevitability of his computer overtaking his own will and went with him anyway. The Force, he hears, can be like that, a computer overriding its previous orders. It can make you do things you’d never do on your own.

As someone who has done quite a bit on his own, it sends a shiver down Lando’s spine whenever he considers it. It’s also a conundrum - would it be easier to blame his betrayal on the thrall of the Dark Lord than to accept it as his own fatal error?

He thinks he knows how Luke would advise him, despite barely knowing him, but taking Responsibility has never been his style.

He’s more of a run away from his problems guy -- the galaxy is a big place when you have a starship. But instead of commandeering his own ship and running, Lando goes to settle in a holding lounge past the med bay. He can barely hear the soft beeping of the tank monitors, tinny reminders that Skywalker’s alive, and there’s a huge viewport be can sit and stargaze from.

Space is more home than anywhere else, cold stars and empty expanses more welcoming than most planets. He wonders if Lobot still feels the same way, if the computer in his brain can recognize and translate that emotion into binary code.

He’s looking out at the stars of real space, pinpricks like ones and space like zeroes, when Leia Organa, senator and princess of the late, great, Alderaan, interrupts him.

“He’s a fighter,” she says and Lando hadn’t heard her come in. Lando knows plenty of dead fighters, though.

Leia is small, too, in a different way, slight. She can fill up a room, though, and he feels her intensity whenever she pins him down with a glare.

“Tough break for Han, you mooning over him like this,” Lando says, and she rolls her eyes at him.

“It’s not like that,” she says, and he isn’t sure how to say, it really seems like it is, Princess. Han likes dark haired space-siders who are quick with an insult. Leia spent their first day in space together destroying what was left of his self-esteem, screaming well-deserved insults until she ran out of steam. She was perfect for Han.

“The hand doesn’t seem like it’ll regrow,” Lando says instead. “Is that normal?”

Leia shakes her head and her hair stays perfectly in place. “Lightsaber wounds -- 2-1B said the cut was cauterized instantly. Too risky to reopen it when the chance of regeneration is so low.”

“I guess so.” Lando would take the risk to keep his hand - a prosthetic isn’t smart like the AJ^6 cyborg construct, but. It isn’t human flesh, it isn’t _his_. The loss would be more real.

“He looks like shit, huh?” Leia asks, leaning against the viewport railing.

Lando stares into his cup of lukewarm caf -- the droids on the ship are so bad at brewing it that he thinks it has to be intentional. “He’s alive, at least.”

Leia presses her lips together. “ _They’re_ alive.”

He lets Leia stay there for a few moments, then finally says, “I think we got off on the wrong foot.”

She raises an eyebrow at him. “I’ve been to better dinner parties.”

“I’ll start: I’m Lando Calrissian, recently deposed Baron Administrator of Cloud City, in Bespin.” He extends his hand.

“That’s a long way of saying ‘unemployed scoundrel.” She takes it. Her handshake is firm, confident. “Princess Leia Organa, of the recently dispersed Galactic Senate.”

“It’s good to make your acquaintance,” he says formally, and gives her a bow.

She laughs, it might be the first laugh he’s heard in days, after their scramble off planet to the safe frigate. “I can’t say the same. But I’m glad you’ve stuck around.”

“I can’t let Chewie go out on his own.” Lando runs fingers over his own mustache, that guilty twinge hitting him again. “I owe him that much.”

She looks down and says, “You’re a bad man, Baron Calrissian, but maybe there’s hope for you yet.”

Lando glances back at the bacta tank and thinks about upgrades, about software, about the Empire.

-

Leaving a bacta chamber is a less than dignified process, so Lando leaves Leia to supervise it. He doubt Luke even knows who he is, and the Falcon has enough damage to keep him and Chewie busy for the next few days before Leia’s rendezvous with the Rebels.

He can’t believe he’ll be using the Falcon to find the man that cheated him out of it, but friendship finds him in funny places.

For instance, Lando’s on his way to the ship bay, staring at a datapad and wondering if there’s anything other than protein bars in the mess, and walks right into a recovering Luke Skywalker.

Luke’s on legs shaky like a newborn runyip’s, and he almost tumbles over.

“Whoa, hey there kid.” Lando presses a hand against the small of his back and Luke startles - skittish.

“Sorry. Um, Lando, was it?” Luke asks, squinting at him like he’s barely awake. Lando lets him go and steps back, giving them both some breathing space. Luke’s face is expressive and open when it’s not pinched in pain. He’s cute, the same kind of cute the Princess is -- uncorrupted and too good for him. Absolutely too good for Han.

“Lando Calrissian, former Baron Administrator of Cloud City, former and now temporarily current co-pilot of the Millennium Falcon.”

Luke blinks, eyes bright. “You’re who that hunk of junk came from, huh?”

“Hey! She’s a good ship, and she’s got you out of a couple tight spots, hasn’t she?”

He smiles, a little uncertain about what he can say. “Yeah. But just because the Falcon is lucky doesn’t mean she’s not missing more than a couple bolts.”

“Safety was the last thing on our minds during the Kessel run, kid.” Lando swallows, the thought of Han like a sudden deep ache. “It’s nice to have her back, though. Almost makes up for losing all of Cloud City in a military coup.”

“Well, I guess we’ve all lost something recently,” Luke says, lifting his stump and giving Lando a lop-sided smile.

Lando barks a laugh, startled and charmed. He’s too old for a smile like that to charm him, but Luke looks so honest and good that he can’t resist.

“If you’re looking for something to do, Chewie and I could use at least one more hand.”

Luke full on grins and Lando can see why Han trusted -- trusts -- him, why Leia seems so protective. When he smiles he looks years younger, lighter and more innocent. Lando thinks back to his face on Cloud City, red and streaked with tears, and it’s a wonder they’re even the same person.

“I guess I have the time,” Luke says, and he follows Lando to the hanger bay.

The chatter is light in the Falcon, and Luke spends most of his time resting, but neither Chewie nor Lando can begrudge him that. Chewie even tries to feed him spare protein bars, roaring at him that he needed to fatten up and get strong.

“Do you think he’s alive?” Luke eventually asks, when Chewie takes a break to head to the mess.

“Solo?” and that, Lando thinks, is unfair, that _two_  beautiful people would have fallen prey to Han’s paltry charms. “Han’s tougher than he looks.”

Luke nods, and Lando goes to join him, sitting down on the bench next to him.

“I’m not sure what Jabba’s plans for him are, though. He’s tough, but I’m worried.” Lando’s not sure if it’s the right thing to say, but lying isn’t going to get him anywhere either.

“I was hoping you had more intel,” Luke says. “After all, you did try to sell us to the Imperials.”

Lando holds his hands up. “Hey now. I told you, I thought I was doing right by my city’s people.”

“I guess Han’s one of _my_  people, now.”

Lando swallows. He doesn’t want to talk about this. “Look, don’t tell him I told you this, but Solo won this baby fair and square.” He pats the wall.

Luke smiles, and again he looks more at ease. Lando wonders what Solo’s claim on him is - are they friends? Is the Princess his only lover, or were both of these rebels his?

He tries not to dwell - it makes him feel unseemly when he glances at the hollow in Luke’s throat or those warm blue eyes.

“So tell me about the Death Star,” Lando says, just to break up the tension that’s settled between them. “I heard it was you who cracked it right open.”

Luke honest-to-space blushes, and that is when Lando decides he might be fucked.

-

Luke joins him for a few hours each day on the Falcon, and he and Chewie replace tubes and oils and Lando wonders what the hell has Han been  _doing_  these past few years. Hopefully making better decisions than Lando. Definitely being a better friend than Lando, if the way his hand went straight to shoot Darth Vader was any indication. He’s not sure where the kid goes after, except one day he shows up with a brand new hand but he assumes it’s something either important, mysterious, or both.

Lando mostly tries not to pry, because Luke seems happy to talk about anything but himself. He and Chewie even have an hour long argument about rifle scopes on speeders and Lando spends the time sneaking glances at Luke when he laughs.

Lando mostly spends the evenings playing sabaacc with the crew and making sure he doesn’t win every hand, and trying not to think about what Luke’s new cybernetic skin might feel like.

Leia catches him in the mess a day or two before they reach their destination. Lando’s shoving a pastry in his mouth and he startles when she lands a hand on his shoulder.

“What can I do for you, your Highness?” he asks, wiping crumbs off his face and looking up at her as she tries to loom over his seated from.

“I need you to handle him,” she says, huffing as she sits next to him. Chewie roars a greeting from across the table.

“Who?”

“Luke! He’s restless and he’s driving me crazy -- I have three more briefings to get through and I can’t stand him fidgeting through them.”

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing that’s more important than those, Princess.”

“Be creative!” she snaps, and leaves.

Chewie roars, and all Lando can say is, “I know, buddy, I know.”

-

Luke lets Lando in on the third knock, and he looks a little stir-crazy, blonde hair tousled around his face.

“Meditating?” Lando asks, stepping in. There’s a pillow on the floor and the bed’s unmade, blanket balled in the middle like he couldn’t get comfortable.

Luke snorts, shaking his head. “Trying to. Can’t seem to clear my head, but Leia’s sick of me interrupting her debriefs.”

He rotates his forearm and Lando probably can’t hear the gears turning inside it, but he imagines he can and he doesn’t like it, thinking of all those wires now attached to Luke’s nerves and skin.

“This thing keeps distracting me. The Repli-Limbs now are supposedly able to take care of that phantom pain but it doesn’t seem to be doing it for me.”

“That’s because your brain is overpowering you, kid. Maybe you’re letting your mind open to the universe a little too much.”

Luke sighs and sinks back down on the floor, and Lando sits at the edge of his bed.

“I don’t think that’s it either. Do you know anyone who has an upgrade like this?”

“Like that?” Lando thinks again of Lobot and his cybernetic brain, and shakes his head. “No, sorry.”

“2-1B says I should be fine.” Luke sighs and hangs his head, blonde hair falling into his eyes.

“I don’t think that’s what’s weighing on you, kiddo,” Lando says, because he doesn’t. He’s not sure what it could be - hell, he still barely knows what he rescued Luke from back on Bespin. Darth Vader didn’t finish the job and he wonders how that must feel.

Luke looks tired, eyes heavy in a way that’s well beyond his years. He doesn’t look quite so fresh-faced. “I guess.”

“If you don’t wanna talk,” Lando says, “maybe you want to drink?”

“What?”

Lando reaches into a pocket and pulls out a generously sized flask. “Correllian brandy,” he says, unscrewing the top and taking a swig. “Top shelf, from Solo’s private stock.”

Luke takes it and Lando can’t stop looking at the hand, skin so smooth that he can’t quite remember where the seam should be.

“This stuff,” Skywalker says, making a face, “is strong.”

“Bet they don’t have ale like this out in Tatooine.”

Luke grimaces as he hands the bottle over. “No. Biggs and I did brew some ourselves once.”

“I’m impressed you didn’t go blind,” Lando says, taking his swig and handing it back.

Luke shrugs. There’s a slight blush spreading across his cheeks, but he swallows more anyway. Lando looks at his lips, his neck, the open tunic that shows off his collar bones, and wonders if it makes him a bad person that he’s thinking of taking this from Han, too.

“Now, tell me a little about yourself, Luke Skywalker,” Lando says. “How did you get to become a Jedi knight in the first place.”

-

They finish the flask. Lando learns that Luke is from Tatooine, a backwater planet like he’d guessed, that the attachment of the hand didn’t hurt, that Han Solo and he saved the Princess from Darth Vader, who said he was Luke’s father. That a boy named Biggs was his first kiss, and had a moustache, “just like yours,” he’d said, and giggled, light and airy. Lando has seen him smile, but a laugh, head tossed back, that was something. Lando feels like laughing just look at him, like Luke’s carefree side is infectious.

They move closer together as Luke talks until their knees bump and Luke looks dark again, eyes pinched and worried, and Lando isn’t sure what comes next.

When it happens, Luke kisses him softly, like Lando is some kind of breakable precious thing, and it hurts Lando’s chest to be touched like that. Lando sold one of his oldest friends to a dark lord, Lando doomed another for a long-shot at money, Lando is kissing Luke without even stopping to think if it’s a good idea.

“Is this okay?” Luke asks, and Lando doesn’t know why the galaxy would ever be this kind to him.

“Anything you want,” Lando says, because he doesn’t do anything by halves and he’s already started this.

He wants to be so careful, because Luke is clearly precious to so many people already, and Luke is content to slide into his lap and kiss, tongue slipping in to tease his own.

Lando rests his hands on Luke’s hips and kisses him. He feels young, younger still when Luke pushes him back onto the bed and lets Lando slide his hands up his tunic, lets Lando pull it over his head and toss it to the ground. Luke smiles and Lando smiles back, feeling flush and warm with alcohol and the weight of Luke all around him.

They kiss for a long time, the alcohol buzz fading even as Luke lets Lando kiss down his neck, to those damnable collarbones.

Luke slides his right hand up Lando’s blouse and Lando can’t help it, he shivers. The hand is blood-warm, skin just the right amount of rough and soft, and Luke pushes the shirt up his chest and smiles down at him.

“You’re good kisser,” Luke says, and he laughs. Lando’s heard, but never so baldly and boldly.

“I’m glad. I want you to know this probably isn’t the best way to deal with your problems.” Lando can change, maybe.

Luke kisses him on the cheek, then on the nose. “Getting drunk and making out with a veritable stranger who saved my life?”

“That’s a very charitable interpretation of what happened,” Lando says, straightening himself up a little. He’s hard now, and he wants to rock up against Luke but he also doesn’t want to take anything that’s not offered.

“I’m alive, and we’re kissing right now, so I think I’m right.” Luke’s face is pink across his cheeks and his nose and Lando wants to memorize it, the way his flush spreads over his skin, the faded freckles there. He wonders what Luke looks at his most sun-kissed.

“Whatever you say, Jedi Knight.” Lando slides a thumb over Luke’s chest, swirling the pad of his finger over his right nipple, making it harden.

Luke gasps, a little oh of surprise, so Lando lends down and licks his left nipple, then slowly drags his teeth over the nub.

Luke’s brighter still, sighing happily when Lando kisses up his neck and throat to return their lips together. Luke rocks forward and for a second there’s friction, heat spreading up Lando’s spine, and Luke gasps again. He does it again and moans, hands fisting in Lando’s shirt.

“Can I?” Lando asks, hand hovering over the tie at Luke’s waist, and he nods, letting Lando unwrap the rest of him.

Lando likes the feeling of a dick, all velvet smooth hot skin under his fingers, and he wonders if it feels the same, if jacking off with a cybernetic prosthetic is worse of better. Then he sees Luke let his head fall back, the sweat shimmering at his temples. He’s lovely and happy like this, in this moment as Lando jacks him slowly, feeling Luke’s cock pulse in his palm.

“Fuck,” Luke says when Lando twists his wrist, and he pants when Lando does it again. “Oh fuck.”

Lando pulls his hand off and says, “Let’s reposition.” He twirls them around - Luke sprawled on the bed, weight on his elbows as he peers up at Lando. Lando gets off the bed, brackets Luke’s spread legs in his own, and he leans over and slides a hand down over his dick again.

“This is...way better than meditation,” Luke pants and Lando grins, leans down and kisses him hard as he keeps jacking him off.

Luke makes little noises in his mouth and Lando wants to eat them all up, wants to keep Luke here until the heaviness around his eyes leaves for good, until he feels better, ready and able to kill his own father, and what a bad sex thought that is, Calrissian.

Luke squirms and cants his hips up, trying to fuck into his fist, and he lets him for a second or two before twisting his hand again, rubbing the thumb over the head, his slit. Luke’s dick is so smooth, a dusty pink in a nest of blonde curls.

It takes less time than Lando wants it to for Luke’s face to blush darker and for him to buck up rough and hard a few times, pleading words into his mouth. Lando wants it, slides his hand back to cradle his balls and they’re tight, he’s close.

“C’mon, kid,” Lando breathes into his ear, “You’re almost there.”

Luke nods but he doesn’t seem focus, just frenetic and desperate.

“Faster? Slower? Harder?” Lando asks, tightening his grip just a little, and that gets him another throaty moan. Luke nods frantically so Lando continues, picking up the pace as precum drips out.

“C’mon,” Lando says. Luke’s chest is flushed, nipples peaks, and god is it delicious, his tanned skin and lean muscles, the flutter of his eyelashes, the brief flash of his blue eyes obscured by pupil.

Luke’s orgasm seems to take him by surprise - his eyes pop open and he groans, loud, and spills over Lando’s knuckles. He falls back on the bed, giving his elbows a rest, and stares up.

“Lando Calrissian,” he says.

“Luke Skywalker,” Lando says, and slides his hand into his own pants.

“Wait, no, I can --” Luke starts, reaching out as though he could help right then. His right hand moves fluidly, reaching for Lando’s fly.

Lando smiles down at him. “I’m good.”

He likes a hard grip, a fast pump, when he’s on his own, but this time he bothers to roll his trousers down and takes it slow. Luke’s watching him through heavy eyelids and biting his lip, and so Lando gives him a show.

It doesn’t take long, and he collapses onto Luke on the bed with a heavy and sticky thud, and Luke laughs loud when he tries to push him off.

-

Chewie and Lando finish their repairs a day before rendezvous, and Lando is not so self-righteous a man that he would deny himself this, Luke’s golden smile and heavy worries, the way he can’t tell his right from his left hand. His skin feels equally good all over.

Leia doesn’t say anything about the gentle hickey Lando leaves on Luke’s neck, says “thanks for distracting him,” shakes his hand when he sets out to leave.

Luke doesn’t kiss him when it’s time for Lando to leave, though they hug in the hangar bay and Lando stares at that hickey the whole time. He knows it’s stupid but he hopes it fades before they find Han.

-

Luke waves with his right hand, fingers looking just like the ones on his left.

Lando sits in the cockpit and looks out at the stars.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Credits Roll by Joel Plaskett.


End file.
